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Fiona Shaw to Star in ‘The Testament of Mary’ on Broadwayhttp://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/fiona-shaw-to-star-in-the-testament-of-mary-on-broadway/
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/fiona-shaw-to-star-in-the-testament-of-mary-on-broadway/#respondTue, 08 Jan 2013 18:06:21 +0000http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/fiona-shaw-to-star-in-the-testament-of-mary-on-broadway/The acclaimed actress Fiona Shaw and her longtime collaborator, the director Deborah Warner, will return to Broadway this spring for the first time since their “Medea” in 2002 with another play about an emotionally vivid and vulnerable woman: “The Testament of Mary.” Ms. Shaw will play the Virgin Mary, struggling to come to grips with the life of her son some 20 years after the crucifixion. The play is scheduled to begin preview performances on March 26 at the Walter Kerr Theater and open on April 22.

“The Testament of Mary” began as a monologue written by the Irish novelist Colm Toibin (“The Master,” “Mothers and Sons”) and performed by the Tony Award-winner Marie Mullen in the Dublin Theater Festival in 2011. Mr. Toibin turned the piece into a novella, which was published to strong critical praise last fall. In a telephone interview on Monday, Ms. Shaw and Ms. Warner said that Mr. Toibin was now working on the latest version for the Broadway production, which they expected to run 90 minutes.

The women said they had been hunting for years for another Broadway project when the Tony-winning producer Scott Rudin, who worked with them on “Medea,” pitched “Testament” and proposed going right to New York. (The women usually hone their productions on a circuit of international theater festivals.)

“I can’t believe we’re doing it straight on Broadway, because it’s new for us, and possibly a little bit mad, and possibly right,” Ms. Warner said. Asked why it might be mad, she said, “It will certainly be an unusual Broadway show, and it has all sorts of things about it that will make it most provocative.”

Ms. Shaw also acknowledged “potentially sacrilegious” elements of the play, set in the city of Ephesus, where Mary agonizes over the choices of her son and argues with his disciples over hagiography being prepared for the Gospels. Still, Ms. Shaw noted – as Mr. Toibin has – that “Testament” was well-received in Dublin and caused relatively little fuss among Roman Catholics in Ireland.

“It’s not some sort of fundamentalist tract challenging the basis of Judeo-Christian religion,” Ms. Shaw said. “Colm, as a Catholic and Irishman, knows the stories of Mary in his bones. He has played with them, but he also loves Mary – he’s not here to slam her up against a wall.”

“But this Mary is also not the aloof, blue-veiled icon that you are offered in statuary,” Ms. Shaw continued. “She is a mother whose son is rather difficult, and she is a mother facing the fact that she produced a special child. The audience has to decide if Mary is a reliable witness to her own memory. She certainly remembers things differently from how we’ve read them.”

By their count “Testament of Mary” is at least the 13th outing together for Ms. Shaw and Ms. Warner, who first teamed in 1988 on a production of “Electra.” In New York their work includes celebrated productions of “The Waste Land” (1996); “Medea” – for which they were nominated for best actress and best director Tonys, respectively; and “Happy Days” (2008). After all these years together, they said they were intrigued by the new task of preparing a Broadway-bound piece in a rehearsal room and then honing the work during preview performances.

“I’m unfamiliar with the long pattern of previews,” Ms. Warner said. “Usually we’re doing a few weeks in a different city’s festival, but now we’ll have New York audiences teaching us what the thing is. Scott Rudin is very right that if you’re going to put the Virgin Mary on stage – which, let’s face it, is what we’re doing – then she deserved to be very near Times Square. Avignon is too rarefied. She deserves the big spotlight.” (Mr. Rudin is shepherding the play with another Tony-winning producer, Stuart Thompson.)

Given the reputations involved – Ms. Shaw, for one, is an Olivier Award-winning actress who is a favorite of theater critics – “Testament” is likely to be a force in several Tony races this season; other new plays with strong female protagonists include “The Other Place” (starring Laurie Metcalf), “Ann” (Holland Taylor) and “I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers” (Bette Midler).

Ms. Shaw, asked if Tony voters would dare to deny Mary – an awards-bait role if there ever was one – laughed at length. Then she said, “I think Tony voters should pray on it.”